Yesterday was the best Thursday ever. Consider:
- After what felt like years but was actually years, I finally got my BA from Temple University. Cum laude, even, which was a pleasant surprise since I would’ve expected something more like pedicabo et irrumabo (my Latin is probably wrong there) . This wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of help from a lot of people who made it their business to see to it that I graduated, particularly Ruth Ost, Ben Stavis, Louis Mangione, and Craig Eisendrath, all at Temple.It’s super-nice to have this out of the way, and as an added benefit, my resume is now 90% less mendacious! (Previous versions said that my degree was “expected June 2005.” This wasn’t exactly a lie — I really did expect it.
- A CD I got for sending a donation to This American Life also finally showed up on my parents’ doorstep.
- I received the contract for a large, fun project that I’m not currently at liberty to discuss, and
- William F. Buckley died.
Later in the day, a massive amount of work threatened to turn it into the Worst Thursday Ever, but then
- I got an email from my mom saying that she was getting ready to send me a care package of butter rum/caramel chocolate bars.
As if that wasn’t enough, I heard that the China Daily was publishing an interview that they did with me at the start of February. (The article came out today, but I’m going to count it under Thursday anyway.) Surely there can be no higher honor.
Comments 13
congrats.
Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 6:03 am ¶I left a comment with three links to that China Daily interview. Unsurprisingly, it was flagged as spam.
Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 10:56 am ¶@Brendan: Can you drop me an email? I’ve got a “Chinese on a Mac” question for you”, since you seem to be the expert.
Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 1:40 pm ¶Hey Brendan, I went to congratulate you on TPD and saw that the thread was closed due to Troll Infestation – so, uh, Congratulations!
Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 2:30 pm ¶Hey Brendan, just read the article – cool stuff!
Sadly, but not at all surprisingly, I’m never mistaken as a native.
And damn if you didn’t make me look up what a “mynah” was. Not, as I thought, an old woman prone to bilingual greetings.
Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 5:06 pm ¶Hey Brendan, congrats and a big hug!!! Just read the article. Yeah, I was confused by “mynah” too!
Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 5:29 pm ¶Still, I think it is unfortunate that most people don’t seem to have noticed that China Daily published that interview twice, and it was republished over at china.org.cn. Brendan’s really, really hit the big time now.
Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 12:44 pm ¶I have a friend who used to sail with Buckley who – to his surprise – ended up really liking the guy. J.K. Galbraith was also a friend, and called him the perfect debating partner for being eloquent, well-spoken and “invariably wrong”.
No man is an island, and I’d rather have a conservative movement staffed by fun-loving idiots with intellectual integrity than the current crop. Sadly, none of the things that are really there to admire about Buckley’s life would have ever happened without the financial comfort he reaped from promoting an almost unerringly repulsive political agenda. May he rest in peace, but may his ideas die with him.
Congrats on finally getting that diploma.
Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 12:40 pm ¶So when are you going to start your career as a China scholar????? grad school is waiting for you and your lovely Chinese wife, IMO. :-)
Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 7:22 pm ¶Congratulations, I know you were looking forward to some of those things.
“China scholar” is palatable; just don’t aspire to become a “China hand” – those people drive me nuts.
Posted 10 Mar 2008 at 3:15 pm ¶May happiness be a part of you forever!
Posted 05 Apr 2008 at 2:33 pm ¶It was through the China Daily that i got to know you and i really feel appreciated it offering the oppotunity of knowing you who has a kind and sensitive heart.
I have read little of Buckley’s stuff, but he wrote a superb piece in 1961 – “Why Don’t We Complain?” – that I find highly applicable to modern-day life.
He is on a train that is overheated and watches as none of the passengers, himself included, mention it to the staff: hence the article’s title.
“For generations, Americans who were too hot, or too cold, got up and did something about it. Now we call the plumber, or the electrician, or the furnace man… With the technification of life goes our direct responsibility for our material environment, and we are conditioned to adopt a position of helplessness not only as regards the broken air conditioner, but as regards the overheated train. It takes an expert to fix the former, but not the later; yet these distinctions, as we withdraw into helplessness, tend to fade away.”
Congrats on your degree!
Cheers, Boyce
Posted 07 Apr 2008 at 12:28 am ¶hey,nihao
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